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Saturday, 3 October 2015

Silence is, sometimes, Golden

Last night I was invited to celebrate the Holiday of Sukkot
in the company of some dear friends. We had dinner at their Sukkah. I also
learned a great lesson, the lesson of the impact of silence

Through their invitation and my acceptance of it, we all engaged
in the honorable duty to perform a Mitzvah. The Mitzvah is a twofold one. As
prescribed in Deuteronomy 16:14,“You shall rejoice in your festival—you,
your son, your daughter, your manservant, your maidservant, theLevite, the stranger, the
orphan and the widow who are within your cities.” I fulfilled the duty of
sitting in the Sukkah. My hosts - in welcoming me and others.

In addition to inviting earthly guests to the Sukkah, Am
Yisrael, according to tradition, also earns the privilege to host seven transcendent
guests. They are the seven founding fathers of Am Israel, Avraham, Yitzchak,
Yaakov, Moshe Aharon, Yosef and David, the seven Ushpizin (Aramaic for “guests”).
Each of
these founding fathers visits us during one of the seven nights and days of
Sukkot.

And so we come to the titular lesson of
this article.

As each of these Ushpizin graces oursukkah each night and day of Sukkot, he sanctions and empowers us
with the particular quality that defines him. Together, they nourish our
spiritual essence with their gifts. Avraham feeds us benevolence; Yitzchak, restraint;
Yaakov bestows upon us harmony and truth; and so on.

On the fifth Day of Sukkot, the presence of Aharon, the brother
of Moshe graces our Sukkah with his heavenly sanctification. Aharon’s quality
according to tradition is defined as humility.

Aharon was Moshe’s older brother, the first born who, in Biblical
times, had special rights. In his great modesty, Aharon did not argue with G-d
when He selected Moshe, the younger, the stutterer to lead Am Yisrael out of
Egypt. Instead, humble Aharon was there
next to Moshe and served him loyally.

It was, however, the unfortunate tragedy that befell Aharon which
yielded us the great lesson of the importance of silence. The Book of Leviticus
chapters 9-11 recounts the events that led to the death of his two sons during the
last stages of celebrating the dedication of the Mishkan, the holy Tabernacle.
Moshe tried to console Aharon. But as the Torah tells us "וידום אהרן "
(and Aharon became silent, Leviticus 10:3).

The gift of upholding silence during certain moments in Life
and History is very powerful and rather rare. Language and the spoken word are
a great tool in communication, understanding and sharing with each other. Silence,
on the other hand, is our means to connect with G-d and the universe that
surrounds us. Silence and its unspoken message can sometimes be more prevailing,
potent and expressive than any words we utter. We were witness to it a few days
ago when our Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at the U.N.

I will not address the content of his speech. Others have brilliantly engaged
at dissecting and analyzing it. I prefer to dwell on the forty five seconds of
his silence. During those long moments, he said more than during the lengthy
speech that he gave. The deafening stillness of his pause cut like a sharp
knife through the thick blinding fog that has been shrouding the U.N. for many
years. It seemed to have paralyzed those present. More importantly, it sent a
strong message to the world, a double message.

The first is that Am Yisrael will not stand silently as the world did and
continues to do in the face of ongoing threats to annihilate us. We will speak
up, we will protest, we will make our voice heard and do whatever it takes to
defend ourselves. The second is that we will also practice the gift of the
power of silence to get our message through and across, as did Netanyahu in his
U.N. speech last week

The day Benjamin Netanyahu delivered this powerful lesson to
the world coincided with the fifth Day of Sukkot, the day Jews are blessed with
the spiritual gracious visit of our forefather Aharon.

How refreshing it was to learn that Aharon’s eternal gift of
Silence was not wasted.